Anyone wake feeling exhausted after seemingly dreaming all night

I don't know if the dreams are causing my nightly headaches. I'm wondering that if the dreams are so intense they could be causing tension headaches. The headaches started the same time the dreams started. The other night I woke up around 5:00 am thinking I went through the whole night without a headache then went back to sleep dreamed my husband forgot to pay our mortgage for two months, then woke with a headache. Most of my dreams aren't stressful just very involved like watching a movie that sometimes I star in and sometimes I just observe.

I used to wake from deep sleep and now I take 5 mg of cyclobenzaprine {Flexeril}.

Yes!! Finally, I wasn't aware there was a disorder called Epic Dreaming. This is my life. I've always had, what I called, night sagas. They are vivid, lasting most of the night and I wake up tired, if not emotionally exhausted.

What is different for me is that they are hardly banal or lacking in affective anything. They are simply the most intense experiences I experience. And it's multiple times a week. Sometimes every night.

Like this morning. I'm not sure I quite made it back into this reality yet. Hence how I found this.
Tons of body disassociation. It's like when you merge two images and one is just a bit off. I know my brain is sending the messages to function, but there is a hefty degree of floating outside of everything. Trying to plug back in. Anyone else deal with this?

I was just googling for “vivid dreams waking up exhausted” and found this discussion. I’m in my 40s and have been having periods of this on and off for a few years. My dreams are vivid and detailed and often emotionally charged. Lots are losing things, being late for things, missing flights, etc. but they do get a lot darker sometimes though. They play out with the narrative arc of a movie sometimes and appear to be very long and detailed. Sometimes I solve technical problems in them that make sense on waking. Yes just feels like my brain is too active during sleep. Cutting back coffee helped a little bit with the intensity but I’m still having them every night.

Just wondered how you were getting on and if you have found any answers or anything that helps? So far I have tried various medicines/supplements but no help - ashwaganda, magnesium, valerian.

The main problem is that I wake up feeling horrible as if I’ve had no sleep even though I can be asleep for 8 hours+. The only restful asleep I have is when I sleep again for an hour or so in the morning or an afternoon nap when I don’t dream at all.

Let me know if you’d be up for a chat sometime. I feel like I need a buddy to explore this with as it’s really affecting the quality of my life so determined to find a solution. Thanks, Andy.

Because I have nightly headaches I don't know if it's the cause of my vivid dreams or something called Hypnic headaches. Last night I woke at 3 am with my usual headache took a med fell back to sleep and dreamed that I had a migraine and it was with my usual neurologist and another doc that was Martin Sheen the actor. I was trying to tell her that the new meds she gave me for migraine weren't working and I couldn't go on like this anymore. I could feel the actual headache in my dream. And it was true the new meds aren't working. Then I wake up exhausted.

Omg!! This is my life. Now I feel like I'm not some crazy person with these crazy dreams. Me to, always tired.
Thanks for this post..I'm not this unique person going thru this.

I don't know why I never bothered to google this before. I'm 55 now, and I have had this problem since at least my teen years. I call them my action/adventure dreams, and I can remember them very well when I first wake up. Like others, I can sometimes influence the dream, and can get back into the same dream after waking. My dreams are very physical, and I seem to do a lot of running/flying. This morning there was some skiing going on. These activities always morph into a different activity. I wish I'd started a dream journal decades ago.

I've never woken up feeling "refreshed." I enjoy my crazy dreams a lot, but I am mentally exhausted for the first several hours of *every* day. I feel like I'm living my life while I'm asleep instead of when I'm awake.

It’s pretty rare. I have a friend who gets ZERO rem (rapid eye movement) sleep. He takes medication for this. It works for him. ALSO, try purchasing an Oura ring online. It’s amazing. Gratefully Marianne an infinite insomniac‼️

Sometimes not always the same thing happens to me and sometimes I just think as if I can't turn my brain off and my thoughts are constantly going when I googled it this came up

"If you are going through a period of extensive dreaming and you're waking up exhausted, then your focus needs to be on what is happening in your days, rather than your nights. Remember, it's the emotional thoughts we have during the day that we need to dream out at night. The more emotional thoughts, the more dreams!"
And it's kinda interesting because I will say I think it does happen more when I'm stressed but I also noticed if I try meditation or to control my thinking or dream as of thinking of something that's relaxing for example I think of just floating in a river while kayaking with sunlight perfect and perfect music too. Sometime I feel like it guides me into a more restful sleep also when I do some workouts like yoga stretching I feel like my brain is so exhausted sometimes from it that I end up getting the sleep I need. I hope some of those things can help

Agreed! Nice to know I’m not alone.